Sidney Davis | Tribune-Review - Kayla Downing, 17, of Hempfield prepares for her shoot during the WPIAL individual rifle championships in the Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsmen's Club in Canonsburg on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.

Sidney Davis | Tribune-Review - Joseph Heyl (left) of Bethel Park and Scott Kolar (kneeling) of Plum, both 18, set up during the WPIAL individual rifle championships in the Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsmen's Club in Canonsburg on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.

Sidney Davis | Tribune-Review - Young shooters concentrate on their targets during the WPIAL individual rifle championships in the Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsmen's Club in Canonsburg on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.

Sidney Davis | Tribune-Review - Elizabeth Forward's Talyn Boden, 16, is able to block her chronic hiccups while shooting. She participated in the WPIAL individual rifle championships at Dormont-Mt. Lebanon Sportsmen's Club in Canonsburg on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.

Traveling by Jeep, boat and foot, Tribune-Review investigative reporter Carl Prine and photojournalist Justin Merriman covered nearly 2,000 miles over two months along the border with Mexico to report on coyotes — the human traffickers who bring illegal immigrants into the United States. Most are Americans working for money and/or drugs. This series reports how their operations have a major impact on life for residents and the environment along the border — and beyond.

Brendan Boyle was hanging out with friends, wearing his Woodland Hills High School rifle team sweatshirt, when a passer-by took note, stopped and shared a few thoughts.

It was shortly after the Sandy Hook school shooting in December, and Boyle, a senior and the team captain, cannot recall the exact words. But the gist of the man's unsolicited comments was “It's not safe. Guns shouldn't be in schools,” Boyle said. He added that the man “apologized” but emphasized that he “really wanted to voice his displeasure.”

Boyle recounted the episode after competing in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League rifle championships last week in North Strabane. Inside a low-ceilinged, bare-bones shooting range, high school boys and girls lying prone on mats fired .22-caliber bullets at paper targets 50 feet away. It was a rigidly supervised and tightly controlled environment. Safety measures were stated and repeated. Tension and the smell of gunpowder hung in the air, a world unto itself.

Meanwhile, on the outside, in what might be considered the real world, the national conversation about gun control and gun violence, gun purchases and gun ownership and all other matters gun related continued to boil, unabated.

Those involved in the sporting aspect of the gun debate (the one that involves shooting paper) are not deaf to the chatter. They are acutely aware of a hot-button topic about which opinions are plentiful and freely stated, sometimes by passing strangers. They are expressed calmly or with great fervor, in black and white or shades of gray. Those involved are acutely aware, too, of their place in such a landscape.

“I grew up with it,” said Jon Hammond, coach of the NCAA top-ranked West Virginia University rifle team, who spent his childhood in Scotland and recalls the 1996 Dunblane massacre in which 16 schoolchildren and a teacher were killed. “For a little while maybe, I think it hurt the sport back home, the way it was viewed.

“But our sport lacks exposure, and so a lot of time people don't necessarily have the knowledge and understanding of what the sport is about, the benefits and the life skills it can teach.”

In other words, “frustration begins where knowledge ends,” said Woodland Hills coach Matt Rodriguez, echoing a popular refrain in the sport.

John Husk, the Trinity High School coach for 25 years and architect of the most successful WPIAL rifle program during that time, is well-armed for the discussion. Husk, who teaches classes in manufacturing and television production and operates a winery, was happy to touch on a number of subjects.

On the matter of security, Husk said guns and ammunition are stored in locked, “bank-quality” vaults, or in safes, and access is rigidly controlled. Safety? “No one's had a concussion; no one's broken a leg,” he said. Knowledge? “My kids have a big respect for firearms because they've been exposed to it.”

His fellow coaches — all certified instructors, nearly all of them lifelong devotees of the sport — gladly chimed in.

“People say they're anti-gun, but they're really anti-violence,” said Hempfield's Tom Miller, coach of the 2013 championship team. “A gun is no more than a tool.”

“It's a physically demanding, mentally demanding sport,” Mt. Lebanon coach Dave Williard said. “One thing about the sport: You can do it as long as you can walk.”

Participating in rifle “has made me more mature,” said Boyle. “It's not like, ‘I'm shooting a gun.' It's having the right mental game, and you can't do that if you're not mature.”

Boyle said he gave a calm, measured — some might say mature — response to the man who approached him, explaining the competitive buzz he gets from the sport, the stringent safety measures and the skill level involved, the team's classroom success, the camaraderie, the discipline and how each participant is “incredibly responsible,” he said.

Boyle, 17, also plays the mellophone, a brass instrument similar to a French horn, in the marching band and is interested in musical theater. He said he has been accepted by three colleges so far. He expresses no firm opinion on the gun issue, mainly because “there's no need to,” he said. “As long as these rifles are in a controlled environment, there's nothing to worry about.”

Talyn Boden, however, does have an opinion. A 16-year-old sophomore at Elizabeth Forward High School, she said, “.22s and hunting guns” are fine, “as long as you know how to control them and go to safety classes.” But she questions automatic weapons, or other guns “that are, like, huge and big,” she said. “You don't need them.”

Boden has been shooting for about a year despite an unusual malady, chronic hiccups. It's true. But she manages to control them when she shoots. She belongs to an outside shooting club and competes individually because her school does not have one of the 14 WPIAL rifle squads.

Boden's father, Gary, is a hunter, and so was his dad and grandfather. And she hunts, too. But it was mainly a friend who got her interested in target shooting.

On Thursday, Boden shot in the individual competition and vied in a swim meet that night. In the spring, she will compete in track.

Her mother, Shawna, teaches French in high school. Asked if anyone questioned her daughter's interest in shooting, Shawna Boden mentioned that a school official was worried about the rifle ending up in the building. (It did not.)

“It's unsettling that we have to even consider that,” Boden said. “I've been teaching 19 years, and I've never seen the protocols we have to go through in school (regarding security). You just don't know who to trust.”

Boden said she was “a little uncomfortable at first” with her daughter's gun involvement until coaches explained everything involved.

“It's an organized sport,” she said, “just like any other sporting activity.”

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